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Fuck the progress we’d made, if Trevor had been rude to my mother I would—my thoughts were interrupted by the towel that swatted my shoulder. I turned to my mom and her warm smile threw me as she thumbed away the furrow between my eyebrows.
“No, mi vida. He was apologizing for how he treated you.”
“Wha—huh?”
Her laugh was soft as she took my hand and tugged me to sit in the chairs at the island.
“He explained some about what he went through. That he was going to therapy and working on himself, for himself but also for you. So he could be a better packmate. And he said he never wanted to hurt you again or make you feel the way your fathers made me feel.”
“But why hasn’t he said anything to me?”
She shrugged and began to say something else, but Shae, Miles, and Nate arrived back at the apartment then. Shae called out for Cat, squeezing my shoulder as they walked down the hall to where she and Aubrey were. Nate and Miles walked over to where we sat and Miles leaned on the counter beside me, not touching me but grounding me, and somehow still bringing me comfort, just by being there.
“Ready to go, Ethan?”
I nodded as the others came back in. I wanted to keep talking to my mom about Trevor and what she thought but knew I should grow up and talk to the Alpha himself.
“We’ll move Cat in at the end of the week and Bodhi’s going to handle her security while she goes back to pack up her place.”
Cat’s smile was less forced than I’d seen since she’d moved into the guest room at our house. I could tell that made Shae happier, too. We said our goodbyes and made our way back to our place. Shae and Miles disappeared into their room, and I hung around the living room with Cat a bit longer before making my way up to the nest to get into clothes that were more comfortable. My feet stalled outside Trevor’s door though.
He wasn’t home, and no one was around to catch me, so I quietly pushed his door open just enough to peek in. I swallowed down the whine that clawed its way up from my chest as his scent rushed over me. Fuck.
I wouldn’t go into his space because he’d know but I didn’t need to. His scent was so deeply ingrained in every inch of his room that just standing on the threshold was enough to scramble my senses. The deep mahogany and teakwood hit me like no other scent in the pack did. As much as I loved them all and needed their scents, something about his scent just tipped me over the edge so much faster.
As I remembered the first spike I’d had, and how the traces of his scent when I entered the house had nearly buckled my knees, I got hard. I took in another embarrassingly long breath to drag his scent into my lungs and told myself that I would talk to him in the morning. Closing the door to his room, I continued up to the nest and started to plan. I’d go to his office or something and make sure he knew how I was feeling. How I respected all that he’d done to help himself and that I wouldn’t push him. That I was prepared to be his packmate, his friend: whatever worked for him. My stomach flipped with nerves and the thought that he could outright reject me. My mom’s voice broke through those thoughts in my head as I remembered what she’d told me, “he said he never wanted to hurt you again.” I clung to those words as I got ready for bed and hoped that tomorrow would be the push we both needed to find who we would be to one another. No pressure.
Shae came up to the nest later, saying that Jade and Theo were locked in Jade’s room because they’d bonded again and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They’d found me curled up under all my blankets, overthinking everything. Since I was already feeling all worried and insecure over talking to Trevor the next morning, hearing that Jade and Theo were spending time together, instead of racing to claim me, set off the needy Omega feelings.
Shae told me they’d go get the two Alphas for me when they saw the tears that were threatening to fall, but reason overrode the designation hindbrain bullshit. I knew Jade and Theo loved me. I knew they would claim me. I also knew that their need to be together right after bonding again was as much a biological demand as my need for them.
They made sure to distract me by riding my dick while they filled me with a vibrating knot toy. After I’d come so hard, I swore I blacked out for a minute, we soaked in the giant tub, and I confessed everything that I was thinking about Trevor. Shae told me that they thought I was making the right call but to be gentle with him. To remember that if he wasn’t ready to talk yet, it wasn’t because there was anything wrong with me.
We’d fallen asleep tangled together and, sometime in the night, Miles had come up and cuddled in behind Shae. I knew he just wanted his Beta close after everything, but, since the dinner at the beach, we’d been making steps toward something. My little Omega heart was preening at the thought of having my place in the pack become more firm, more secure. Not that I wasn’t sure they all wanted me as the pack’s Omega. But things with Trevor had been so rocky before and Miles needed his own pace for friendships and connections; it finally felt like it was all coming together.
Miles drove Shae and I into Drake House that next morning. He opened my door for me before walking around to kiss Shae goodbye, saying he’d be back later to pick us up. Apparently, Jade had been working on a plan, behind the scenes, to hire Shae and Cat as contract EMTs for Drake House and the rest of the board had agreed to it the day before. Shae was coming in to work with Jade’s assistant to go over everything they would need to purchase and all that. It was a great solution for both Shae and Cat since they both loved their job, but their trauma was still so close that they couldn’t think about working on normal routes again. It also made the Alphas happy because they could help and hover at the same time. Win-win.
I swiped my card to get into the BullPen and nearly ran into a flustered looking Derek as I rounded the corner of the short hallway.
“Hey Derek, have you seen Trevor?”
His eyes shifted behind me, and he licked his lips, almost like he was nervous. Weird.
“I think he’s in his office with Cole.”
“Cool, tha—” he turned away and went out the door I’d just come through without another word. “Ohhkay. Bye to you too.”
I walked through the space, waving to the few people at stations as I walked along the wall toward Trevor’s office. His door was open and my feet stalled, the same way they had the night before when I passed his room, but this time it was from the tone of his mostly hushed voice that leaked out to me. He sounded colder and angrier than I’d heard him since the day he’d rounded on me in the conference room.
“I hear you, Cole. I’m done holding back and playing nice to get what we need from him. It’s time to get rid of him.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Are you sure it’s time? He could still be useful?”
Even Cole sounded rough. Angry and tired. My gut clenched as I wondered who they were talking about. I’d never heard Trevor speak like that about anyone. Shit, anyone but me.
“I don’t care. I’m tired of seeing his face every day, pretending like I can stand to have him near us all. Enough is enough.”
